New Research on Getting Kids to Eat their Veggies

New research suggests that giving no messages trumps any other approach when it comes to getting kids to eat their vegetables. This idea is very simplistic and needs more research, but it does suggest that telling kids “eat this, it’s good for you” may backfire since kids may tend to think that it won’t taste good. Read the New York Times article here.

I think there’s a lot more to creating messaging for kids around healthy eating. Think about what advertisers do! Their use of subliminal messages, and stressing that the food tastes great, is cool, fun, popular, delicious…and gosh, like Coca Cola, even patriotic! I think role modeling plays an important part in messaging about food as well. That’s why FoodPlay Productions sees live theater and any form of interactive education to be so effective for nutrition education – we get to “show” not “tell” and put healthy eating in a positive light.